Celebrate America

Looking for something to do this weekend that's fun, free and family-friendly? Then come CELEBRATE AMERICA this Sunday beginning at 4pm at Christian Life Assembly in Camp Hill.

This FREE event will feature fun stuff for the kids: 8 inflatables, 20 games, petting zoo, pony rides, face painting and live entertainment. Did I mention it is all FREE??!!

There will also be 60 arts and crafts vendors, Blue Moon Cruisers specialty car & motorcycle display, rock climbing walls, and local fire, police and food vendors.

Also, you can enjoy two Patriotic Celebrations in the Indoor Main Stage at 5:00 & 7:00 PM featuring former American Idol Finalist PHIL STACEY and the Celebrate America Vocal Solo Competition. The day ends with a 23-minute fireworks display set to music at dusk

At the last Celebrate America, over 8,000 people came out to take part in the fun.  So come early and bring a friend.

My husband has a few favorite feeds and sent this to me from one of them. I thought I'd pass it along. It is a constant, ongoing conversation Dan is having with our children (and with ourselves).

why-i-returned-my-ipad-harvardbusinessreview

A Classical Education: Back to the Future

This opinion piece was written by Stanley Fish and printed in the NYT on June 7.  Great explanation of classical education and its significance in the modern world.  Good discussion in the comments also!

Chris Perrin responded to Fish's piece with an essay of his own that points out although Fish is an ally of classical education he is lacking one important element in his educational foundation.

Mother/Daughter Book Club Keeps the Reading Bug Alive

Next year's third graders have made room in their busy summer schedules for a special event every two weeks...a Mother/Daughter book club!  The moms and girls are reading Little House on the Prairie over the course of the summer which is a great follow-up to Little House in the Big Woods which is what they read during the school year. 

Eight moms and their daughters read the first six chapters and then engaged in a great discussion on the author, life in the 1800s and their favorite scene in the book so far at their first get together.

Of course, there was plenty of snacks and lots of fun...for both the girls and the moms!

Our fearless leader!!

Summer Break

I'm taking a break from the Plunder Pile for the summer, but anyone can feel free to use or revamp it in any way that they'd like. Prizes for the 2009 to 2010 school year go to Dan for the post with the most views, Natalie for the longest post with the most links (a category snatched out of my hands at the 11th hour), Mr. Kearns for the best line (Who wouldn't want to fly into the sunset with a warrior queen at his back, leading and protecting his people from the skies and sleeping in a gigantic tree?), and Donald Miller for generating the most non-virtual community dialogue. I've heard exciting rumors of others planning to join the authorship next year. I'm so glad Sarah, Dave and Natalie managed to keep this past couple months from being a complete theological geek fest.

With the summer upon us, seeing some of our alumni hanging around the school has been wonderful. Ben Brown recently sent me a link to this frisky post by Doug Wilson: "It is assumed that where creation is thick—where the music is glorious, the beer stout, the women beautiful, the lawns rich, the architecture splendid, and so on—it presents a greater temptation to idolatry than where someone has mixed the paint thinner of ascetic striving into the created order in order to avoid the idolatrous distractions. But this does not work."

This means, I think, that enjoying your rich lawns as God's good gift is the best way to prevent idolatry.

The Most Miserable Day of My Mother's Life

I appreciated reading over this essay by my wise Dad. Please check it out and leave a comment or two.

"Marriage is the deepest relationship between human beings: it is also the most difficult. My wife told me, the day after our wedding, that it was the most miserable day of her life…"

I also like that my Dad enters the online world about as hastily as an ent moots: "This was not knocked off last night at two a.m. This has taken shape slowly in my mind and heart over the last forty years."

menandwomenbook.org

Does God Tamper With Evidence?

A great post, quite concise and accessible, from the anonymous man moving to Elfland on some of the various presuppositions of the creation/evolution argument. The question raised is, why do we automatically preclude supernatural intrusion in the act of creation? We accept the miracles of raising people from the dead and the feeding of the five thousand and assume "that God would never suspend the 'laws of nature' to create the world..."

That said, I am still a little closer to Kline's position, which is covered briefly in the article.